DVA Household Services: What's Covered and the D9319 Claim

A correction worth making first. A great many websites — and a fair few advocates — call this the “D9416”. It is not. D9416 is the Disfigurement and Social Impairment form, an entirely different benefit. The household services claim is D9319. If you have been handed a D9416 to fill in for mowing and cleaning, someone has given you the wrong form.

What household services compensation actually is

It is compensation for the cost of domestic tasks you can no longer do yourself because of a condition DVA has accepted. It is not a care service DVA arranges for you — you engage the provider, and DVA pays.

The statutory definition, from section 213 of the MRCA, is services “of a domestic nature (including cooking, house cleaning, laundry and gardening services) that are required for the proper running and maintenance of the person’s household.” The entitlement itself sits in section 214, and the test is whether the services are reasonably required as a result of an accepted service injury or disease.

Eligibility — and the change on 1 July 2026

You may be eligible if you are unable to manage household tasks because of an accepted service-related condition, and you are assessed as having a reasonable requirement for the services. You must be living at home, and the tasks must be ones you were responsible for before you were injured.

One hard precondition: MRCA s 214(1)(c) means household services can only be considered once liability for a service-related condition has already been accepted. No accepted condition, no household services — which makes the claim itself the first job. See how to submit a DVA claim.

The significant change: under the VETS Act, from 1 July 2026 veterans whose conditions were accepted under the Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986 (VEA) can lodge a household services claim. DVA’s own words: “Previously this compensation was not available for conditions accepted under the VEA.” Every new claim lodged on or after 1 July 2026 is assessed under the MRCA regardless of when you served or which Act accepted your conditions.

Existing DRCA approvals continue until the renewal date in your determination letter. If you are already at the DRCA limit, you can ask DVA to transition early to access the higher MRCA limit.

Also eligible: current and former ADF members including part-time Reservists, ADF Cadets, Officers of Cadets and Instructors of Cadets.

The weekly limit — real figures

There is no hours cap. The statutory cap is a weekly dollar amount, indexed each 1 July by CPI:

MRCA: $611.46/week in 2025–26, rising to $633.47/week from 1 July 2026.
DRCA: $588.55/week in 2025–26, rising to $609.74/week from 1 July 2026.

Providers may charge up to a standard maximum rate — $79.90 per hour including GST for the 2026 calendar year. No further DVA approval is needed for a provider to charge up to that published rate during an approved service period. (Note the rate changes on a calendar year basis while the weekly cap changes each 1 July.)

Arithmetic, not policy: $633.47 at $79.90/hour is roughly 7.9 hours a week. DVA does not publish an hours figure, so treat that as a rough sense of scale rather than an entitlement.

The weekly limit can only be exceeded where the veteran meets the criteria for a Catastrophic Injury Determination — in which case services may be provided to meet assessed needs without reference to the statutory limit. Note also that the household services and attendant care weekly limits are mutually exclusive; you cannot draw the full amount of both.

What is covered

Domestic cleaning, including window cleaning, dusting and vacuuming
Laundry and ironing
Meal preparation
Lawn mowing and gardening
Gutter cleaning and solar panel cleaning
Grocery shopping — but only “where the person cannot use delivery or click and collect services”
Chopping and stacking firewood the veteran has purchased
Childcare, in some short-term and crisis circumstances

What is not covered — and the cases behind it

The exclusions are not arbitrary; each traces to a decided case, which is worth knowing if you intend to argue one.

Household maintenance (Todd v Department of Defence [1993] AAT No. 9004) — painting and decorating, repairing fences, doors and windows, plumbing, electrical work, tree lopping and removal, pest control, synthetic lawn installation, landscaping, and removing large rubbish items such as old furniture or white goods.
Anything a householder would normally hire a professional for (Lander v Comcare [2000] FCA 339) — Finn J held the services envisaged are “those provided by the household members themselves… not services for which those members make provision for the injured employee through the agency of third party providers.”
Vehicles (Pembshaw and Department of Defence [1996] AATA 691) — washing, servicing, repairing or maintaining a vehicle. The car is not part of the house and curtilage.
Packing and unpacking when moving house — not a regular task for running the home, and reasonable to hire a removalist. This applies even if you used to do it yourself.
Dog washing and dog walking.
Nursing care — that is a different program.

For needs that fall outside, DVA points to the Defence, Veterans’ and Families’ Acute Support Package.

The “reasonably required” test — the eight criteria

This is where claims are won and lost, and most veterans have never seen the list. A delegate must consider the criteria in MRCA s 215 and address every relevant one in the determination letter:

The extent to which you provided household services before the injury
The extent to which you can provide them after it
The number of other people living in your household
Their ages, and their own need for household services
The extent to which household members provided those services before the injury
The extent to which household members or relatives might reasonably be expected to provide the services now
The need to avoid substantial disruption to household members’ work or other activities
Any other matter the Commission considers relevant

Criterion 6 is the one that surprises people. DVA puts it plainly: it “is required to consider whether it is reasonable for a member of your household to assist you with specific tasks without being paid to do so.” A partner who already does the mowing may reduce what is approved. That is not DVA being difficult — it is the statute.

The evidence DVA actually relies on

Here is the part that changes how you prepare. The decision is based on an assessment of your ability to undertake tasks, and CLIK is explicit that “for all new claims and renewals, this assessment would generally be conducted by a suitably qualified and experienced Occupational Therapist.” Not a GP letter. An OT.

Do not book the OT yourself. CLIK states, twice: “The need for an assessment must first be determined by DVA. If DVA did not request the assessment, there is no mechanism to provide payment to a third party for undertaking the assessment.” Commission your own home assessment and you will likely wear the cost.

What a doctor contributes is the part before the OT: the accepted conditions, and the documented functional impairment that makes the tasks impractical. The chain a delegate needs to see is accepted condition → functional impairment → inability to perform the task → assistance reasonably required, and each link has to be evidenced rather than asserted. Reduced overhead reach makes window cleaning and hanging washing unsafe; reduced kneeling and squatting tolerance makes weeding and bathroom cleaning impractical; reduced standing tolerance undermines meal preparation. Spelling that out task by task, against your actual documented limitations, is the work.

How to claim, and what happens next

Have the underlying condition accepted first.
Complete D9319 — Claim for Household Services. Email it to hhs@dva.gov.au or post to GPO Box 9998, Brisbane QLD 4001.
DVA decides whether an OT assessment is needed and arranges it.
A Delegate of the Repatriation Commission determines the claim in writing, stating the amount approved and the approval period, with reasons. It is a reviewable decision with appeal rights — see appeals.
Approvals are normally for five years, with shorter periods for rapidly progressive conditions or short-term post-surgical needs. There are no open-ended determinations.

Practical points: the contract is between you and your provider, not DVA. Providers need an ABN, appropriate insurance, and Working with Children, Working with Vulnerable People and Police checks. As a general rule DVA cannot pay family members to provide the services. Providers must submit invoices through the Provider Upload Page. And tell DVA if you apply for NDIS or My Aged Care services, are hospitalised, enter respite, travel, or your needs change — a 28-day grace period is considered reasonable before services are reduced, but there is no grace period after death.

One more overlap to know: once household services compensation is determined under MRCA s 214, you are not entitled to Domestic Assistance or Home and Garden Maintenance through Veterans’ Home Care. Respite care remains available through VHC regardless.

Talk to us

We write the medical half: the accepted conditions, the documented functional impairment, and the task-by-task link that a delegate can follow. Fixed fee, never a percentage of your compensation. Call 0429 146 039 or email reception@vhc.org.au — Veterans Health Centre, Ipswich, Queensland.

DVA Household Services: What’s Covered, the Weekly Limit, and the Claim Form